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Chronicles of Bagdad 

An Oriental Fantasy 



By 

Abdu'l Hassan 




CHICAGO 

THE BOOKFELLOWS 

1919 



This booh published from time to time in sixteen-page install- 
ments and issued to BooTcfellows. Three hundred copies print- 
ed from type by Luther Albertus Brewer, BooTc fellow No. 14. 
The first sectionjpxmted in October 1919. 



Copyright 1919 by 
Flora Warren Seymour 



0C7 29 19(9 

©CU58677S 



THE TORCH PRESS 

CEDAR RAPIDS 

IOWA 






To Abbas Effendi 

in memory of many happy days spent 

together fishing in the Euphrates 



For permission to reprint the essay, "On Walking Down the 
Street," we are indebted to the Damascus Democrat; for "On 
the Perils of Aviation,' ' to the Aleppo Plain Speaker; for 
"On the Disadvantages of Being Prepared," to the Mesopo- 
tamia Times; for "On Worshipping Strange Gods," to the 
Orthodox Mohammedan of Diarbekr; for "On Not Answer- 
ing Letters," to the Arabian Housewife; all the others have 
appeared in the Bagdad Evening News, to which due acknowl- 
edgment is made. 



IN BAGDAD 

In Bagdad when the world is still 

And night is overhead, 
The prison yard is damp and chill, 

The graves give up their dead, 
And he who walks on Gallows Hill 

Strange shapes will meet, His said. 

In Bagdad when the summer sun 
Sis golden madness flings, 

The dusty ivays with frolic run, 
The very desert sings; 

A revel-tide of mirth and fun 
Infects the dullest things. 

hi Bagdad when a lady fair 

Admits Iter lover's claim, 
It thrills him to each tingling hair, 

Each sense it sets aflame. 
In Bagdad? Aye, and everywhere 

Methiiiks 'tis much tlie same. 



CHRONICLES OF BAGDAD 

I 

ON WALKING DOWN THE STREET 

A MAN may accomplish much by walking down 
the street. 
I have made this epigram by way of varia- 
tion of Anthony Trollope's saying, that a man may 
accomplish much by fastening himself to the seat 
of his chair with cobbler's wax. 

If mere inertia is productive of results, how much 
more may be expected from mobility ! For instance, 
by walking down the street one may see what They 
are wearing. If the street be aptly chosen, so that 
its pronouncement on the subject may be relied upon 
as authoritative, one may also see what They are 
doing. This is highly desirable, not only for its 
positive results, but also for its subjective effect. 
Arthur Train in his epic of criminal practice, The 
Prisoner at the Bar, says: 

"Observation has ceased to be necessary and has 
taken its place among the lost arts. ' ' 

When this amazing judgment was first given to 
the world it aroused a storm of excitement in Bagdad. 
The Sanhedrin, whose members were widely scat- 
tered (some of them houseboating on the Tigris, others 



12 CHRONICLES OF BAGDAD 

visiting the bungalows of relatives in the Caucasus 
Mountains), was hastily convened and urged to go 
into the question. The Seven Wise Men sought its 
cause in the intensive study of Omar Khayyam. The 
Summer School of Philosophy announced a univer- 
sity extension research course on the subject, with 
prizes for the best three theses. But all in vain. The 
true explanation came from a most unexpected quar- 
ter, but it was no sooner uttered than it was univer- 
sally accepted. Its discoverer was Ben Ali, an 
Egyptian beggar who made his headquarters in the 
vestibule of the palace and whose profession allowed 
him much time for mathematical and philosophical 
study. His conclusion was that it was due to a f all- 
ing-off of the practice of walking down the street. 

He was heard to utter this epoch-making verity, it 
seems, quite incidentally, by the Spanish Ambassador 
who was sauntering by to an audience with the Grand 
Vizier. Now, the Spanish never hurry, and conse- 
quently with them the art of walking down the street 
is not an ars perdita. Therefore when His Excellency 
arrived at the vestibule, being then three-quarters of 
an hour late and no slave of time, he stopped to 
examine those famous mosaics, the work of the great 
artist Hafiz, with which the ceiling, walls and floor 
are so profusely adorned. In this way he chanced 
to notice the beggar, and having noticed him took 
out his pocketbook to give him a dinar, for the Span- 
ish are as liberal with their money as they are with 
other people's time, and it was in the course of doing 
this good deed that he heard the famous dictum. 



CHRONICLES OF BAGDAD 13 

It must be conceded that the Spanish Ambassador 
was a man of great penetration, for he had studied 
philosophy at the University of Barcelona under Cer- 
vantes, so the world-wide applicability of the formula 
struck him at once. He felt like another Archimedes 
discovering the secret of specific gravity. He dropped 
his pocketbook and fled into the courtyard where 
some slave girls were feeding the Caliph's monkeys, 
and his sudden appearance with all the indicia of inr 
tense excitement that he was able to assume upon such 
short notice caused great consternation among them. 
It is true that His Excellency was not equal to the 
carrying out of the Archimedes simile in all its com- 
pleteness for, since he had not been in the act of 
bathing, he had no reasonable excuse for presenting 
himself otherwise than in full street costume. Fur- 
thermore, since the lower order of Arabians are very 
ignorant beings and little versed in Greek, he felt 
that to shout ' ' Eureka ! ' ' would simply be a waste of 
effort, which is contrary to a Spaniard's principles, 
so he contented himself with the announcement that 
something very important had just happened. The 
slave girls, being persons of extremely limited com- 
prehension, seeing that the Ambassador had just 
come from the direction of the palace in a state of 
great agitation, could ascribe but one cause to it, and 
so originated the rumor, perfectly baseless at that 
time, that Madame Fatima had presented the Caliph 
with an heir to the throne. 

Even then the matter might not have gone any 
further but for the fact that Doctor Ibrahim, a 



14 CHRONICLES OF BAGDAD 

learned Jew who had been under examination by the 
Grand Vizier on the subject of his orthodoxy, chanced 
to emerge from the palace and saw the Ambassador, 
completely exhausted from his efforts, leaning against 
the railing and pressing his hands to his sides. The 
Doctor helped him to a seat on the steps and began 
the application of restoratives which, aided by the 
ordinary course of nature, quickly produced their 
effect. 

As soon as the Ambassador could speak he em- 
braced his rescuer and kissed him on the beard. 

"Eureka !" he exclaimed, heartily. "It is found 
at last! I have the secret of the whole matter!" 
"What!" cried the Jew. "Not the— ?" 
* ' Yes, ' ' replied the Ambassador ; ' ' the identical — l" 
And so the Jew, filled with enthusiasm for this great 
new discovery, though temporarily overlooking the 
details of it, rushed past the gatekeeper and into the 
roadway, gesturing and shouting inarticulately. 

Then it was that the Grand Vizier himself, annoyed 
at the delay of the Ambassador in keeping his appoint- 
ment and fearing that he might have been diverted to 
the study of botany or of human nature, for which 
many choice subjects were to be found in the en- 
virons of the palace, came to the door with a look of 
anxiety on his noble features. On beholding the Am- 
bassador seated on the lower step a suspicion crossed 
his mind that the envoy of His Spanish Majesty had 
abandoned the profession of diplomacy in favor of 
the equally honorable one of alms-gathering and he 
prepared to toss him a dinar, but withheld his benev- 



CHRONICLES OF BAGDAD 15 

olence when the Ambassador rose and, bowing pro- 
fusely, said: 

"Know, most worthy moon of the great Sun of 
Bagdad, that, however unworthy my person and 
reprehensible my conduct, I have that within my 
mind which may abate a tittle of the punishment 
justly due me. I know the Great Secret ! ' ' 

"What!" cried the Vizier. "You mean that you 
have discovered the cause of the decline of observa- 
tion? " 

"Not discovered, your Worship, but learned. I 
have it from a ragged beggar who sits in the vestibule. 
It is that Arabia, as a nation, has lost its proficiency 
at walking down the street !" 

"Astounding!" exclaimed the Vizier. "This shall 
be communicated at once to the University. But 
elaborate on the subject. Point out the relation of 
cause and effect." 

"It is simple," replied the Ambassador. "The 
practice of walking down the street, as it was in- 
dulged in by our forefathers, stopping now and then 
to examine the wares of merchants or to gossip with 
acquaintances, cultivates the faculty of observation. 
The street is a public place, accessible to all the 
people — no other locality provides such excellent 
facilities on so large a scale. The confirmed street 
denizen becomes a philosopher in spite of himself, for 
one cannot be brought in contact with so many of the 
facts of life without reacting to them. In ancient 
Greece these people were called Peripatetics and were 
looked up to by all classes of society until their leader 



16 CHRONICLES OF BAGDAD 

became so overbearing that he was forced to drink 
hemlock to cure his audacity.' ' 

"Superb!" was the Vizier's comment. "Steps 
shall be taken to revive this ancient custom at once. 
A proclamation shall be issued in the name of the 
Caliph — whom Heaven preserve ! — calling upon all 
able-bodied citizens between the ages of twelve and 
sixty-five to appear afoot on the streets of Bagdad 
for from one to three hours each day, according to 
their means and station in life, and to assume toward 
one another and toward the world in general a kindly, 
inquisitive attitude, freely asking for information and 
as freely giving it when asked, under penalty for for- 
feiture of goods for the venial offender and impris- 
onment and torture for the more serious cases." 

The wise men of the empire were summoned and 
the matter explained to them at length, and in view 
of the fact that the Grand Vizier had already made 
up his mind on the subject they were unanimous in 
commending it. But when they proceeded to the 
vestibule to look for the beggar in order that he 
might be properly rewarded it was found that he had 
disappeared, and many to this day hold to the opinion 
that Ben Ali was simply a cloak invented by the 
Spanish Ambassador to cover his own modesty. 

The Ambassador's pocketbook, which he had dis- 
carded in the vestibule, disappeared also, and Ben 
Ali, who turned up nearly a week later, when ques- 
tioned under the bastinado disclaimed all knowledge 
of it, though credible witnesses reported that they 
had seen him, with several boon companions, fre- 



The Bookfellow Series 
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Chronicles of Bagdad 



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